


And all of the mother's raised their babies to stay away from me

by watchthequeenconquer



Category: The Boys (TV 2019)
Genre: Abandonment, Boys Kissing, Crying, Developing Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Night Terrors, Pillow & Blanket Forts, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Season 2 spoilers, Sleepy Cuddles, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:53:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27467506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watchthequeenconquer/pseuds/watchthequeenconquer
Summary: Butcher returns from a mission to find Hughie's bedridden, and tries to make up for his fuck up.
Relationships: Billy Butcher/Hughie Campbell
Comments: 13
Kudos: 151





	And all of the mother's raised their babies to stay away from me

**Author's Note:**

> Less frottage than I am used to, but I was having a bad day, and this was the result. 
> 
> Spoilers from Season 2. 
> 
> Tile from Golden by Fall Out Boy.

Butcher strolls into the bunker, greeting the lads with his usual swagger and rough manner. He’s had a successful morning collecting intel on the supes, sharing the detail with MM and Frenchie.

He frowns.

“Where’s princess?”

“Still in bed.” Frenchies ignores the pet name, voice suddenly dropping an octave in its an enthusiasm.

“Know I gave him a good seeing too, but didn’t think it was enough to keep him off his feet all day, am I right?” Butcher grins wolfishly. His smile quickly drops into a more natural scowl when the other two men fail to share his boisterous attempts at bonding.

“He’s having a bad day,” MM says, by way of explanation.

“How bad?”

“He won’t come out from under the blanket again.”

“Shit.” Butcher curses, immediately abandoning them in the centre of the living room.

He finds Hughie hiding beneath a tattered old excuse for a blue blanket. It’s so thread-bare that is barely covers him; all those lanky limbs contorted into a misshaped ball to fit underneath.

“Fuck.” Butcher sighs to himself, running a hand across his face.

He tamps down on his immediately reaction, chewing the inside of his cheek to stave off the impulse. His first reflex is to grab the blanket, yank it off and drag him out of bed, kicking and screaming.

What a calamitous error that had been, the first-time round. Hughie had dissolved into a full-on panic attack, taken refuge in the storage cupboard and refused to eat or come back to bed for days. Let alone look Butcher in the eye, forget about uttering a single intelligible sound that didn’t make his stomach roil in pity.

“You alright?” Butcher ventures.

Maybe they’re wrong and he’s just sleeping.

The lump beneath the blanket moves slightly, curling in more tightly on itself if that’s even possible, but doesn’t reply.

Butcher eases himself onto the bed slowly. Just like a frightened critter, ain’t it? No sudden movements.

He puts his hand out, laying it on the top of the fabric enclosed pile.

The mass jumps, emits a low, worried whine.

“Don’t fret, pet; I ain’t gonna move ya again. Learnt my lesson last time, didn’t I?” Butcher hopes he sounds remotely reassuring, dropping his voice lower in his best imitation of soothing.

His hand moves of its own accord, beginning to rub feather-light, comforting circles.

Rather than the desired effect, the clothed body begins to shiver. It starts off gently but becomes increasingly violent in its force.

Butcher breathes out through his nose in frustration, ignoring the concerned tightening in his chest. Bites back the urge to yell for Frenchie, who’s accent makes him naturally sound like one of those recordings that puts invalids to sleep at night. Or MM, who can bearhug any of the jitters out of him, without making him want to crawl out of his skin at the same time.

The keening starts as a quiet whimper; the kind of noise you might miss if you weren’t listening hard enough.

Butcher curses to himself when it starts getting louder and louder. The wailing is enough to make his skin crawl when he decides to act.

“Permission to come below deck?” He asks the shaking mess below. His hand has clenched into a fist and he consciously relax it, wishing he was less shit at this.

He ignores the protesting shrill that emanates from beneath at the intrusion.

“Too fucking bad.” Butcher grunts, lifting the edge of the blanket up.

He swears quietly as he buried himself underneath it, trying not to completely dislodge the blanket as he goes.

The trembling mess beneath quickly tries to retreat to safety, behind the walls of the blanket fortress its constructed for itself.

Butcher allows it, but not before getting a rough glimpse of Hughie’s face, puffy and streaked with tears continuing to gush down his cheeks in glistening rivulets.

“Hello love,” Butcher says gently, reaching out and gently trying to prise the arms away from the gorgeous, distraught face.

“Don’t...” Hughie shrieks, only causing him to cry harder. His thin frame shudders with the force of the sobs wracking it. His breathing is so ragged that he’s on the edge of hyperventilating.

“Easy now,” Butcher soothes, wrapping his calloused fingers around his wrist and squeezing rhythmically, “Just catch your breath, hey? Focus on my hand, okay?”

The words seem to break through the fog. Hughie’s breathing slows to a steady stream of barely contained whimpers.

“There you go, nothing to it,” Butcher babbles; those are the sort of things you say to someone on the cusp of losing their fucking marbles, don’t you?

It’s been this way ever since MM dragged Hughie back from inside the whale, the near-death experience at the hands of dear little Starlight. The hallucinations of his dead ex-girlfriend had been manageable in comparison.

Butcher hates himself every day for not having been the one to take Hughie by the hand, drag him out of those sorry mess and into his arms. 

Can’t fucking protect him, can he? From the fucked-up life that he’s dragged him into. No time for self-loathing now. Got to put back together what he’s broken, ain’t he?

“What’s got you so upset, love?” Butcher asks, moving to gently stroke Hughie’s mop of curls. He should’ve seen this coming on from the state of it, dirty and unkempt, clearly not having washed for a few days.

He was just so excited to see Hughie when he got back from two days on the beat. Should’ve fucking picked it from how needy he was, desperately climbing into his lap like a newborn puppy, wriggling and whimpering and mouthing at the pulse point of his neck.

And what had Butcher done? Pounded him through the mattress like a complete prick. Took his silence during and after to mean that he was just wrapped up in the experience, exhausted from their joint release after days of pent up tension.

Fucking idiot.

Hughie mumbles something unintelligible into the crook of his arm. At least he’s attempting to communicate.

“Can’t hear you, gotta lift your head up, dear.” Butcher coaxes, daring to slip two fingers beneath the barricade and hoping he doesn’t lose them in the process.

They find their way under the guarded chin and lift it, surprised when the rest of him complies.

Hughie’s blurry blue eyes blink like he’s just woken up from a long nap. They’re so sore from crying that they’re nearly closed, eyelashes glistening with a constellation of poorly suppressed emotion.

Butcher wants to hit something - break his fist on the brick wall, or maybe smash his head into it until he can’t feel the anger and desperation building behind his own eyes.

Instead he leans forward, moving as slowly as human possible, and kisses each of Hughie’s swollen eyelids, catching his tears on his shaking, dry lips.  


“What happened love?”

Hughie shakes his head, as if fighting against his own sub-conscious desire to remain silent, drawing in a shaky breath.

Butcher knows he’s supposed to be the one in control, calm and collected, but he can’t hide the worry on his face as he looks at the young man before him.

Hughie hiccups loudly, and it’s so fucking endearing that Butcher wants to pull him into him, drag him into the cavern of his chest and lock him up behind his ribs where he can keep him safe.

“I woke up and you were...gone...” Hughie manages, hiccupping in between the words at the sheer effort of producing the sentence. Butcher feels what’s left of his heart collapse in on itself when his face crumpled and the tears begin to flow again, harder than before.

Oh fuck.

Butcher wordlessly drags Hughie into his arms, letting him fight out the last of his panic before he collapses, sobbing into the wall of his chest.

“Oh love, I kept you up all night. You’ve been sleeping so poorly; I didn’t want to wake you, fucking cunt I am.” Butcher curses quietly, stroking Hughie’s head.

Hughie only cries harder, pushing away with his palms while trying to cave in his sternum with his forehead in his attempts to get closer.

“I’m the cunt,” Hughie gasps, words muffled by his best attempts to burrow inside the older man. 

“...I had the dream where I was back inside the whale again, and Homelander found me...just as I woke up and you weren’t there...”

“Ssh, ssh… let it out,” Butcher hums, sweeping his broad palm in long strokes down the length of the small man’s back.

He just looks so breakable, curled in on himself, trying to escape the nightmares in his head; a shadow of the boy he met who took down one of the most famous supes in the world with the flick of a switch.

“I’m sorry...I’m just being a little bitch...need to stop...”

“Enough of that now,” Butcher hushes, pulling him back from his chest, “Look at me, Hughie. Fucking look at me!”

Hughie struggles before wrenching his eyes open. They’re so petrified, so incredible wide, that Butcher can see the whites around his irises, stark in a sea of pale blue.

“I will say this once, so you better remember it.” Butcher cups both sides of his face, willing him to pay attention, “You have nothing to be sorry for. I never should’ve left you in the guts of the stinking fish.”

Hughie stares at him transfixed, eyes almost glazing over, enraptured.

Butcher slaps him lightly, bringing him back to the present.

“You with me, princess? Show me you understand.”

Hughie responds by burying his face in the crook of Butcher’s neck. He gasps when he begins to feel teeth begin to worry at the sensitive skin there, interspersed with affectionate licks, more tender and intimate than he has any rights.

“Fuck me, Hughie,” Butcher groans, feeling his knob jump in his pants, “A nod would’ve sufficed, fucking hell.”

Regrettably, he drags him off, whimpering and pawing at his chest. As much as his preferred method of conflict management is to fall into bed and physical take Hughie apart, choke some sense into him, make him forget his own name let alone these toxic, self-destructive thoughts polluting his mind, the kid needs him now.

“I’m so fucked up. Please don’t leave me…” Hughie whines, screwing his eyes shut as more tears threat to fall. The plea hits Butcher like a sucker punch to the windpipe, robbing him of the ability to speak. 

Butcher drags him back into him, crushing him into his chest. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” He rumbles into his hair, hating himself when his voice crackles, “I’m right here. I’m so fucking sorry sweetheart…”

Without thinking, he uses his freehand to drag the dog tags off from around his neck; his last memory from Becca. 

He presses the metal into Hughie’s fist, where it’s balled up in his shirt.

“See, I might have to go somewhere for a while, but I’ll never leave you…like that, again,” He manages; baring his soul, fucking coward that he is, by speaking into the top of Hughie’s head. 

“Feels nice, the metal, don’t it?” 

He feels Hughie nod against his body, safe and warm. 

“So, whenever I have to go, and you worry, just hold onto that…let the edge cut into your skin a bit.”

The intake of breath when he squeezes slightly too hard, then the release with something like wonder. 

“Hurts a little, but it’ll remind you of me.”

“Remind me of what a pain in the ass you are.”

Butcher smiles, kisses the top of his forehead. 

“Smartarse. Now you’ve found your tongue…” 

Butcher dips his head down to Hughie mouth, wet and waiting. It starts of tenderly, the softest brush of pressed closed lips, until Butcher can’t help but delve his tongue in to explore the darkness. Wishes faintly that he could dive deeper, plug up all the cracks in his silly, sweet boy’s fractured mind. 

He feels Hughie beginning to respond, dick shaping against his leg, whimpering out of more than fear now. 

For the second time in a criminally short timeframe, Butcher pulls off. Hughie protests, but allows himself to be pulled down onto the mattress, frets a bit before pillowing his head against the older man’s chest, nestling into the warm puddle left by his tears. 

“Let’s have a little rest, ay?” 

Hughie snuffles indignantly, before closing his eyes.

Butcher hums. 

“Now, have I ever told you about Coronation Street? Absolute rubbish but an institution in the Motherland…” 

Hughie’s snoring before he can finish his synopsis of the pilot. 

“Cheeky bugger.” Butcher snorts fondly, letting his heavy lids fall closed. Won’t hurt the boys to take the night shift if he just rests his eyes for a bit.

Both boys are snoring so loudly MM and Frenchie turn their black and white television up in the other room to drown them out.


End file.
